Henle Blog

Composing made easy? On Erik Satie’s ‘Nocturnes’

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Peter Jost

It was not without good reason that the label ‘outsider’ stuck to Satie. As of his earliest compositions he was in search of alternatives to the tonal harmony that was still the unquestioned convention when he began his training at the Paris Conservatoire (1879–87). This search runs like a red thread through all of his works, and was certainly absolutely independent of the stylistic orientation of individual works, reaching indeed, as we know, from echoes of the medieval and exotic to the then popular cabaret music. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, Monday Postings, Nocturnes (Satie), notation, piano solo, Satie, Erik, variant reading | Tagged harmony, Nocturnes, Orledge, Satie | 3 Comments

‘It is G! Bravo, and a thousand thanks.’ Günter Henle’s guestbook (and a wrong note in Beethoven)

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert

The violinist Yehudi Menuhin was without question amongst Günter Henle’s closest artist friends. Henle’s autobiography Three Spheres. A Life in Politics, Business and Music contains numerous amusing descriptions of mutual experiences, of which Henle said that Menuhin was ‘on his instrument probably one the greatest masters ever to have lived’. When both were together specific music-text questions were often also involved. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, Beethoven, Ludwig van, first edition, G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings, piano + violin, Urtext, variant reading, Violin Sonata op. 96 (Beethoven), Yehudi Menuhin | Tagged Beethoven, Günter Henle, Violin Sonata, Yehudi Menuhin | Leave a comment

Summer Rest

Posted on August 4, 2014 by publisher

What would music be without rests?

We’re following suit and giving the blog postings a brief rest for the summer.

Please look forward to the next post on 15 September 2014!

G. Henle Verlag

Posted in G. Henle Publishers, General | Leave a comment

Franz Xaver comes to Henle: On the 170th anniversary of the death of Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (29 July 2014)

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Norbert Müllemann

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, 1825 (Source: Wikimedia.org, Licence: PD)

That Henle is a Mozart publisher should not come as news. Since 2011, however, we are doubly so. Our catalogue offers not only Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s great works for piano and chamber music as well as solo concertos, but since 2011, also Urtext editions of works by Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, youngest son of the celebrated WAM.

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (1791–1844) was only four months old when his father died. High hopes were had of the offspring and everything was done to enable the progeny to follow in his father’s footsteps. He received an excellent musical education and soon enough already called himself simply “W. A. Mozart’s son” – a wrong decision, because it is hardly surprising that this legacy became more of a burden than an opportunity. Continue reading →

Posted in Andreas Staier, autograph, first edition, Flute Rondo (F.X.W. Mozart), G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings, Mozart, Franz Xaver Wolfgang, piano + flute, piano solo, Urtext | Tagged anniversary, Diabelli-Variations, Don Giovanni-Minuet, flute rondo, Franz Xaver Wolfgang, Henle, HN 1180, HN 958, HN 959, Karsten Nottelmann, Katalog, Mozart, Polonaises mélancholiques, son, urtext, variations | 2 Comments

Where does the key/clef go? About a problematic passage in Schumann’s F-major string quartet

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Peter Jost

Fig. 1, from: Wilhelm Busch, "Eine kalte Geschichte" (1878)

Fans of the humourist Wilhelm Busch will certainly be reminded of the story of Master Zwiel who, upon returning from a tavern on a cold winter’s night, stands at his front door with key already in hand and vainly seeks the keyhole.

The story ends tragically: Master Zwiel loses the key and falls while searching for it into a water barrel where he finally freezes to death.

The finale of Robert Schumann’s string quartet in F major, Op. 41 No. 2, is not, in fact, quite so dangerous for violists, but there is a connection with Master Zwiel. For the musician also has in hand a key, as it were, but has to search for the matching keyhole – that is, the correct position for the key. [Translator’s note: The German word Schlüssel means both ‘key’ (as used in music notation and as well as in a lock) and ‘clef’, making sense here of the pun.] Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, first edition, Monday Postings, Schumann, Robert, string quartet, String Quartet op. 41 Nr. 2 (Schumann), variant reading | Tagged clef, HN 873, HN 9873, key, op. 41, Schumann, string quartet, study score, urtext, viola | Leave a comment

Without words, but with a foreword – what’s new on Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise”

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Dominik Rahmer

Looking at the topics of the by now more than 70 postings of this blog, most of them deal with questions of musical notation – accidentals, pitch or articulation and dynamics. This is of course not surprising, yet working with musical sources and producing correct and reliable music texts are central in our business. Continue reading →

Posted in first edition, genesis, Monday Postings, piano + voice, Rachmaninoff, Sergei, Vocalise op. 34 Nr. 14 (Rachmaninoff) | Tagged first edition, preface, Rachmaninoff, Vocalise, voice | 10 Comments

A “new” Mozart work. On the c-minor “Fantasy” (K. 396/385f) in its original setting for violin and piano

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert

In the year 1821 three distinguished personalities met in Weimar: Goethe, Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Mozart. Mozart, of course, not in person, but in the form of his original manuscript that Goethe owned at the time (and that he identified on page 2 as “Mozart.”): Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, Fantasy K. 396(385f) (W.A. Mozart), Monday Postings, Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Noah Bendix-Balgley, piano + violin, Robert D. Levin | Tagged Fantasy, fragment, K.396, Mozart | Leave a comment

Clarinet – Oboe – Horn. New chamber music by Carl Nielsen on the Henle agenda

Posted on May 26, 2014 by publisher

Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) is probably best known as a prominent composer of symphonies. His very serious works, full of doubts of both the world and himself, also finally suggested his nickname ‘the Danish [Richard] Strauss’. Henle publishers have set out to show the somewhat different chamber-music side of this composer and are publishing shortly three wind pieces from his early-to-middle creative period. Continue reading →

Posted in Canto serioso (Nielsen), clarinet, Fantasy Piece op. 2 (Nielsen), G. Henle Publishers, horn, Monday Postings, Nielsen, Carl, oboe | Tagged canto serioso, Carl Nielsen, chamber music, clarinet, fantasy piece, Fantasy Pieces, HN 1131, HN 1252, HN 586, horn, oboe | 3 Comments

Best until… How long does an accidental last?

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Norbert Müllemann

Today’s musicians tend to react to the above question with raised eyebrows. Isn’t it clear – accidentals in the key signature are always in force and for all octave registers unless annulled by natural signs. An accidental found in a measure is valid for this note and for the entire measure – no longer, no shorter. But this was not always so.

For instance, there were other rules in Johann Sebastian Bach’s time. Key-signature accidentals were indeed used as they are now, though the accidental placed within a measure was valid only for this one note. If the same note was later repeated in the bar, then the accidental had to be given again in order to be further valid. Continue reading →

Posted in Bach, Johann Sebastian, flute solo, Flute Sonata BWV 1030 (J.S. Bach), Monday Postings, notation | Tagged accidentals, autograph, Bach, BWV 1030, flute sonata, HN 269, HN 64, inventions | 2 Comments

The accent question in Schubert: An old theme with new variations

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Peter Jost

Franz Schubert<br />(Source: Wikimedia.org, Licence: PD)

Franz Schubert(Source: Wikimedia.org, Licence: PD)

Anyone working with Schubert’s autographs inevitably runs up sooner or later against the famous accent question: that is, more precisely, the question of whether the sign notated at this or that passage means an accent or a decrescendo hairpin. Although both signs in modern music notation are very clearly distinguished one from the other – an accent is placed directly above the note head, the hairpin below or above the stave –, they are closely related in origin. When in the expiring 18th century the signs for getting louder or softer (crescendo and decrescendo hairpins) arose as alternatives or substitutes for the written-out directives crescendo and decrescendo, the > sign evolved as an abbreviated decrescendo hairpin. The correlation becomes graphic for instance in Beethoven’s songs. Continue reading →

Posted in accent, Monday Postings, notation, Octet D 803 (Schubert), Schubert, Franz | Tagged accent, An die ferne Geliebte, An die Geliebte, Beethoven, D 803, decrescendo, HN 562, HN 9562, Octet, Op. 98, Schubert, WoO 140 | 2 Comments